PoS(ISGC 2016)036

Status of e-Science Activities in Mongolia (Heritage Science)

Nergui B.1

Department of Informatics, Institute of Physics and Technology of Mongolian Academy of SciencesEnkhtaivan ave, 54b Ulaanbaatar 13330, Mongolia

E-mail: abnergui@arvis.ac.mn

Batzaya E.Department of Informatics, Institute of Physics and Technology of Mongolian Academy of Sciences

Enkhtaivan ave, 54b Ulaanbaatar 13330, MongoliaE-mail: zaya_alternative@yahoo.com

Saving cultural heritages have been always an important matter for Mongolia therefore in theMongolian Academy of Sciences have experience and collaboration with other researchinstitutes, this paper covers the projects which are delicate to save our cultural treasures. Inorder to save it there is an issue, which is how to store cultural heritages and MAS working onthe digitization projects that is an extremely good way to store the cultural heritages.

International Symposium on Grids and Clouds 201613-18 March 2016Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

1Speaker

Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). http://pos.sissa.it/

PoS(ISGC 2016)036

Status of e-Science Activities in Mongolia (Heritage Science) Nergui B. Batzaya E.

1.Introduction

Unlike different universities in Mongolia, the institutes and centers of the MAS have muchinformation about history, archaeology, paleontology, geography, botany, biology, naturalresources, language and literature of Mongolia which has been collected due to the researchactivities and field investigation performed for many years. In order to have a public access tothis information, it is vitally important to create an integrated computerized database anddisseminate the information via the Internet and electron publishing.

For example:• There are about 10,000 scientific base documents,

– catalog including description of 7,800 species of insects,– catalog of habitat description of 9,000 insects,– 4,000 stuff models of 4,000 birds.

• Mongolian state fund and private herbarium collections possess 75,000 perennial, 3,500vegetation species of swamp areas, 10,000 weed plants, 10,000 moss plants and 2,500fungus species.

• ~600 traditional songs and other folklore, ~300 art works, 20 sculptures and more than40 kinds of instruments.

Example research studies include:

Figure.1 Archaelogical investigation of ancient capital of Mongolian Empire Khara-Khorim.

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Status of e-Science Activities in Mongolia (Heritage Science) Nergui B. Batzaya E.

Figure.2 The Oviratorid embryo from Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia, in the Gobi desert is thefirst definitive embryo of nonavian theropod dinosaur. This embryonic skelet on of a nonaviantheropod dinasour was found preserved in an egg from Upper Cretaceous rocks in the Gobidesert of Mongolia in 1993. The egg containing the embryo is incomplete, but the preserved

portion is similar to oblong eggsclassified as elongatodithid.

Figure.3 this is the painting (Tanga) of OchirvanBuddha who protects all Mongols. Chinggis han isbelieved to be his spirit. There is a hypothesis thatthis painting might have been created under Bogdokhan’s decree in around 1911 after Mongolia wasliberated from the Manchu oppression.

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Status of e-Science Activities in Mongolia (Heritage Science) Nergui B. Batzaya E.

Figure.4 All over Mongolia charity contributionsfrom the Tibetan temples and monasteries werecollected every year, and the contributors weregranted with so called “Badar temdeg”papers/credentials. Those papers have been keptin individual families from generation togeneration.

1.1 Cultural Heritage Digitization Projects in Mongolia

Mongolian people have a rich long history of written and verbal culture and a specific inthe form of petroglyphs, birch-bark and paper printed sutras along with unique art works bycraftsmen and embroiderers are being kept in the National Library, Gandan Tegchinlenmonastery and the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences andmuseums.

Academician Ts. Damdinsuren, B. Rinchen, D. Altangerel, Dr. D. Yondon and Dr. L.Khurelbaatar founded the library by collecting numerous sutras in Mongolian script, literatureand history during their scientific expeditions around the country since 1960s. In recent years,an archeological research team led by Prof. A. Ochir from the International NomadicCivilization Institute collected manuscripts written on the birch bark.

Today, books and manuscripts are on the verge of destruction as paper dries out and burnsdue to the storage mishandling. Moreover, study of rare script monuments and intellectualproperty, their availability to and use by the public should be addressed immediately. One ofsolutions could lie in digitizing the ancient sutras. The good news is that there have been somepositive steps taken lately with assistance from the Government and international organizations.

Today, there are three projects taking place in order to implement digitizing our culturalheritage:

The First one is the joint preservation project between the National Library of Mongoliaand Asian Classics Input Project. Its aim is to digitize the library collection of over 1 millionsutras and manuscripts. Within the scope of this project the joint team has produced a digital

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Status of e-Science Activities in Mongolia (Heritage Science) Nergui B. Batzaya E.

catalog of sutras that includes biographies and praises, Buddhist philosophy and knowledgeprinted on the wooden birch bark and written by Holy lamas such as Bogda Zonhawa,Khaidubje, Jaltsabje and Dalai Lama. The digital catalog now contains 86,140 sutras equal to18.6 percent of the total aim.

The National library in the partnership with the Digital Preservation Society starteddistributing the digital version of Tempangma manuscript and the Peking edition of the Kangyurfrom the permanent collection of the National Library of Mongolia.

In 2005, the “Digitization project for the national cultural heritage information” wasapproved by the Government of Mongolia. The project will be carried out until 2015 and willinvolve 35 organizations, including scientific research institutes, national and regionalmuseums. In the framework of the project, the Center of Cultural Heritage has been executingthe registration and documentation of historical and cultural immovable properties, artifacts,archaeological and paleontological findings to establish the national cultural heritageinformation fund with collected data. As of the end of 2010, the project has registered 26,438digitized artifacts.

Despite these efforts to register and preserve cultural heritage, there has been little elsedone in terms of scientific collaborations. Without the proven technology for implementinglarge-scale digital repositories there aren't any cultural heritage collections available online.

Addressing scientific and technological issues in cultural heritage, the MongolianAcademy of Sciences, the leading research organization for fundamental research, is aiming atan innovative infrastructure for scientific research, collaboration and distribution of the culturalheritage to public. In November 2010, in the framework of scholarly cooperation between theMongolian Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Society a competence center fordigitization of Mongolian cultural heritage was founded in Ulaanbaatar.

1.1.1 Competence centre for Digitization of Cultural Heritage of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences

This center is working to utilize progressive technological methods that will digitizecultural heritage items, make cultural heritage accessible to the public with researcher'sexplanations and build a digital information system that will facilitate scientific collaboration.The Mongolian Academy of Sciences consists of 17 research institutes, 9 innovation centers,ranging from archaeology and paleontology to cosmology and information technology. Themain difference between the competence center for digitization of cultural heritage and othercenters is that it doesn't intend to make mass digitization for some specific libraries. This centeraims to digitize manuscripts and books which contain traditional knowledge and technology anddistribute them to the public. We also aim to collaborate with the ECHO system and introduce itinto Mongolian practice. This Center has a digital camera CANON EOS5D Mark II and otherequipment provided by the Max Planck Society. For the first 12 months since its establishmentthe Center has digitized about 12 manuscripts and paid them in ECHO system.

Over 40 books and sutras of Tibetan works, traditional medicine, Mongolian craftsmanshipand other kinds have been digitized. In collaboration with the Institute of Language andLiterature, the Center will work on digitization and cataloging about 1,100 monuments of ClearScript, over 1,000 of Mongolian and nearly 8,000 Tibetan books that were accumulated at theAcademy of Sciences.

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Status of e-Science Activities in Mongolia (Heritage Science) Nergui B. Batzaya E.

The international Institute of Nomadic Civilization has forwarded a proposal to carry outresearch based on this Center on a comparative study of manuscripts and books printed on thebirch bark, that were widely used among the 16-17th century Mongolian nomads with otherbirch-bark art monuments in respect of their methods, technology, customs and distribution,identification of peculiar and common features of the birch-bark culture of the Mongoliannomads, digitization and cataloging of manuscripts, providing their availability to the public,putting it to research use, and its preservation.

Figure.7 1150 sutras stored in the Clear script have been digitalized.

Figure.8 Digital camera CANON EOS5D Mark II and other equipment provided by theMax Planck Society.

In regard of protecting heritage of Mongolian books and sutras, I would like to forward thefollowing ideas:

1.1.2 Conclusion

To organize immediately the equipping of book storage with designated equipment inorder to improve protection and preservation of books. For this, do design the equipmentdomestically and use it instead of expecting financial possibilities to purchase expensive foreign

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Status of e-Science Activities in Mongolia (Heritage Science) Nergui B. Batzaya E.

equipment. I think it is feasible to use directly result of research on adjusting a regular regime ofautomatic close environmental work, accumulated at the Academy. Also digitize damagedbooks, using delicate technology and introduce advanced methods, The 2015 - 2018 project“The Innovative Application of Multi-Spectral Technology for Culture Heritage” hassuccessfully launched as a result of expanding cooperation with the SINICA Academy ofSciences of Taiwan since 2012. The participants of this project are: Informatics Sector/Divisionof the Physics and Technology Institute of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, the SINICAAcademy of Sciences of Taiwan, Chinese Culture University, and Tamkang University.

References[1] http://docslide.us/documents/pnc-2010-annual-conference-dec-1-3-2010-hong-kong.html

[2] http://pos.sissa.it/archive/conferences/153/042/ISGC%202012_042.pdf

[3] http://www.pnclink.org/pnc2012/english/program.html

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